Flyers’ Foerster could suffer setback during season due to injury

The news from Tuesday\'s press conference with Flyers general manager Danny Briere indicated that winger Tyson Foerster is well on the way to being fully healthy when the regular season begins. Foerster is expected to be wearing a non-contact jersey to start the 57-man camp on Thursday but from the looks and sounds of it everything is heading towards a complete recovery.

\"He\'s in a non-contact jersey to start training camp but within the first week we should be able to remove that and have him be able to take physicality and hopefully later in camp getting in some games if everything keeps going in the right direction,\" Briere said. \"So pretty positive there.\"

Foerster was scrimmaging and practicing with some other Flyers prior to training camp\'s official start, taking some bumps and light contact from defensemen Travis Sanheim and Cam York and looking no worse for wear. Briere said Foerster has to get a few things in order before he\'s able to take the hits that come with the 82-game regular season.

Tyson Foerster trying out contact here with Cam York as some staff supervises. pic.twitter.com/3Oo30nNjTM

— Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) September 15, 2025

\"Our trainers want to go through the process,\" Briere said. \"They wanted to protect him as long as possible and he\'s been tested early in camp. We just don\'t want to throw him out right away. They have a process in place and steps to go through. The other thing too is in the gym there\'s a lot of things he couldn\'t do. So his training was set back a little bit. So it\'s making sure the strength matches, and giving him a few extra weeks to be catching up with that strength in his arm so it doesn\'t go the wrong way I guess.\"

So, with any luck, Foerster is good to go. However, there will still be questions about his recovery until he\'s a few weeks into the season and looks fine. The fact surgery was required to resolve the infection Foerster suffered during the World Hockey Championships remains concerning. But perhaps the biggest thing moving forward is that due to the injury, Foerster wasn\'t truly able to put in a full off-season training regimen like many of his teammates (and his opponents) would put in. It\'s safe to say he was probably able to do some skating exercises to stay in shape, but next to nothing regarding using his stick and certainly very little or no weight training at all. At least not on one side of his upper body.

As well, with any injury to a player, there\'s being cleared to play and then actually being physically game ready. Medically cleared to play doesn\'t mean there won\'t be a little (or lot) of rust on a player. The extra gear needed at times during a game might not quite be there, or a player\'s proverbial gas tank might empty just a little bit quicker than his linemates during a shift. All these little things don\'t mean Foerster won\'t be healthy to play. It just means he might take a bit of time to hit the ground running.

Although every player is different in terms of recovering from injury, it\'s not unheard of for a player to need surgery for an infection. Just this past year the Bruins\' Charlie McAvoy developed a staph infection during the 4 Nations Face-Off. The infection in his shoulder was serious enough for surgery, otherwise there was a chance the infection could spread to his heart. Fortunately he\'s recovered but, like Foerster, has been medically cleared but might need time to get back into optimal shape and conditioning. And back in November 2003, forward Dan Cleary of the Coyotes developed an infection in his elbow after getting cut from a skate. Cleary played 68 games that season, so the injury didn\'t write off his season.

Foerster has played two full seasons as a Flyer. In his first year (2023-24) he started quite slow. In October he went without a goal and didn\'t score his first of the season until his sixteenth game against Vegas on Nov. 18. Meanwhile last year was an improvement. Foerster scored in the season opener against Vancouver and had four goals by Nov. 18, 2024. So if anything, so far we know Foerster hasn\'t started a season off like a house on fire. That might work slightly to his advantage coming off the injury as a slow start for Foerster hasn\'t been out of the ordinary for the winger. While it would be great if he did start off on fire and put together a four-game or five-game goal-scoring streak, it\'s not the end of the world if he didn\'t.

Another bonus for Foerster is the fact the Flyers beefed up their roster with a bit more talent. Trevor Zegras should generate enough offense alongside center Christian Dvorak to offset whatever hiccups or bumps in the road Foerster might face staring off. Not to mention the likes of Matvei Michkov, Travis Konecny and (fingers crossed) Owen Tippett should also help offset a possible slow start for Foerster. Of course, if the team\'s power play began looking like it had any semblance of a pulse, that would certainly take a bit more pressure off Foerster as he finds his game, his timing, and his rhythm on the ice.

In terms of the optics, a lot of the focus starting the season will be on the new guys, especially Zegras and goaltender Dan Vladar. The spotlight\'s glare will definitely be on those two for most of the early portion of the season as well as on Michkov. So it\'s not like Foerster is going to be dragging the Flyers to the promised land on his shoulders alone this year. Nobody is expecting him to carry the team. Improve on last year? Sure. Take the team solely through his play deep into the playoffs? That would be great but nobody believes that will happen. All he has to do is look like he belongs and not look out of place (or out of shape), particularly with new head coach Rick Tocchet getting a feel for his new club.

The only drawback if he starts tremendously slow -- and simply can\'t keep pace -- would be to the Flyers best line all of last season. Bobby Brink, Noah Cates, and Foerster clicked on all cylinders from start to finish. So if one of the trio is playing at 60 per cent to 75 per cent of what they usually are, it could put the line back a bit in terms of their production and effectiveness. It shouldn\'t be a huge issue as both Brink and Cates should be able to figure out quite quickly how to shelter Foerster a little bit until he\'s 100 per cent. Flyers fans might not like the idea of Tocchet simply ripping the line apart if Foerster isn\'t quite there yet. A little patience in that regards from Tocchet would go a long way, especially for that trio.

Back in July, Briere said the Foerster injury initially \"wasn\'t supposed to be anything really serious.\" However, things quickly took a turn for the worse. \"Came back here and there\'s some infection that set in to the elbow, and then it just got worse. He came and saw us, our doctors, and decided they had to go in and remove the infection. What I\'m finding out is it takes a long time for all the samples to come back negative, and that\'s what we\'re still waiting on.

\"We don\'t know (a timeframe), and at that point we\'ll reevaluate and see if more needs to be done, or if we\'re lucky enough, that\'s the end of it, and he can move on and be ready for the start of the season. But there\'s no guarantee of that. So we\'re sitting and waiting right now to see how serious it is, or not.\"

The fact it was an infection isn\'t great, but there\'s perhaps less of a chance for an infection to recur versus a lingering or nagging injury. One only has to look at what Rasmus Ristolainen has gone through the past few seasons to prove that if a part of your body is injured, sometimes no amount of surgeries or rehabilitation will solve the problem. Same goes for Sam Morin who if he didn\'t have bad luck would\'ve had no luck at all during his playing career. For those longer in the tooth, Flyers winger Tim Kerr underwent not one, not two, but three different surgeries from June of 1987 through August of the same year. According to reports at the time , a pin placed in Kerr\'s shoulder from one of the June surgeries came loose, resulting in a third surgery. Here\'s hoping Foerster doesn\'t have to worry about anything like that with his elbow.

Given just how concentrated the season is with the Winter Olympics and the NHL siesta because of it, it probably won\'t take long for Foerster to figure out if he\'s 100 per cent or not. The only saving grace is that the Flyers play no back-to-back games in October, so the winger should have time to get the practice work and gym work in so he gets back to looking like prime Tyson Foerster. So for now it looks like Foerster is going to be okay for a few games in the exhibition season, but it\'s probably a given the Flyers will err a bit on the side of caution and limit his minutes as he gets his feet wet again. Either way, Foerster hopefully fully recovers. If not by the opening game against the Panthers, than perhaps by Halloween. Or earlier.

Flyers’ Tyson Foerster could suffer setback during season due to injury recovery

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